We Spent Hurricane Sandy at Sotheby’s

Xavier of Babes At The Museum and stunt-pirate Nimrod Kamer went to Sotheby’s to see how inelastic the demand for Warhol prints can be in the middle of NYC’s worst ever natural disaster. More words + photos here

What most people don’t know about Nimrodand I is that we’re hardcore art collectors. It’s in our Belgo-Jew-ish blood to dip our balls into the jaws of the art world, every chance we get. This passion for the finer things in life began a few years ago, when we inherited masterpieces, by the likes of Hirst, Elmyr de Hory, and Ed Harris (imitating Jackson Pollock), from our family’s vast collections.

Sadly, Hurricane Sandy’s flood waters wreaked havoc to our shared multi-million art stash in Chelsea, turning our timeless pieces into floating piles of canvas goo. To cope with our loss—and distract ourselves from the dead, powerless, and homeless hurricane victims we can’t stop hearing about on the news—we skipped uptown to Sotheby’s mega print auction sale. There, we could relish in the company of fellow art kooks who dispose of more Benjamins than any Hurricane Sandy relief fund could muster. My people!

Our flooded loft stank of wet garbage but the cozy air in the auction room smelled of sanitized money which, any art buyer will tell you, is a crotch-tickling aroma. Unless you’re one of those savvy, 2.0 bidding dilettantes who stream auctions and bid online in your underwear, you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about.

Our bidding style is completely below-the-belt, because we’ll do anything to restore the ocular stimuli into our lives. Nimrod even made a move on an elderly buyer who said Sotheby’s relocated her to a nearby hotel with power and running water. If the Sotheby’s scene is real, than all this climate talk must be a hoax.

While we returned empty-handed to our damp apartment, someone walked home with a cool $1.4 million Andy Warhol print. In the words of the great M.O.P. “Yap that fool.” (Zero proceeds from the auction went to the Red Cross.)

Below are some Sotheby’s vs Sandy pictures that give you an idea of what was going on at the fancy auction around the same time the tri-state area was being ravaged.